Astrophysics Newss
Courtesy of Science Daily

WISE captures a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars A new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars. The stars, called the Berkeley 59 cluster, are the blue dots to the right of the image center. They are ripening out of the dust cloud from which they formed, and at just a few million years old, are young on stellar time scales. Publ.Date : Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:00:00 EDT Astronomers discover most primitive supermassive black holes known Astronomers have come across what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based largely on observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will provide a better understanding of the roots of our universe, and how the very first black holes, galaxies and stars all came to be. Publ.Date : Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EDT First temperate exoplanet -- size of Jupiter -- discovered Astronomers have discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The planet is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, but may contain up to 20 Earth masses of heavier elements including rock and water under high pressure. It thus appears to be very similar to the solar system's giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. Publ.Date : Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EDT Cosmic tapestry: Giant filaments of cold dust stretch through Milky Way Giant filaments of cold dust stretching through the Milky Way are revealed in a new image from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite. Analyzing these structures could help to determine the forces that shape our galaxy and trigger star formation. Publ.Date : Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EDT Seeking dark matter on a desktop Desktop experiments could point the way to dark matter discovery, complementing grand astronomical searches and deep underground observations. According to recent theoretical results, small blocks of matter on a tabletop could reveal elusive properties of the as-yet-unidentified dark matter particles that make up a quarter of the universe. Publ.Date : Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:00:00 EDT Super supernova: White dwarf star system exceeds mass limit Astronomers have, for the first time, measured the mass of a type of supernova thought to belong to a unique subclass and confirmed that it surpasses what was believed to be an upper mass limit. Their findings could affect the way cosmologists measure the expansion of the universe. Publ.Date : Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EDT Mystery solved: Why nebulae around massive stars don't disappear New simulations show that as the gas cloud surrounding a massive star collapses, it forms dense filamentary structures that absorb the star's radiation when it passes through them. This makes heated nebulae flicker like a candle flame. Publ.Date : Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT New Hubble treasury project to survey first third of cosmic time Astronomers will peer deep into the universe in five directions to document the early history of star formation and galaxy evolution in an ambitious new project requiring an unprecedented amount of time on the Hubble Space Telescope. Publ.Date : Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT Turning up the heat: Finding out how well the Webb telescope's sunshield will perform Keeping an infrared telescope at very cold operating temperatures isn't an option, it's an absolute necessity. Serving as a radiation blocker, the Webb telescope sunshield is subjected to nearly 100,000 thermal watts of solar heat, and reduces that to one tenth of a watt on the cold side, a million to one reduction. Publ.Date : Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EDT Mysterious cosmic 'dark flow' tracked deeper into universe Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles per hour along a path roughly centered on the southern constellations Centaurus and Hydra. A new study tracks this collective motion -- dubbed the "dark flow" -- to twice the distance originally reported. Publ.Date : Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST Galaxy study validates general relativity on cosmic scale, existence of dark matter While general relativity describes well the behavior of the solar system, Einstein's theory of gravity and spacetime has not been tested on cosmological scales. Now, a team has analyzed data on 70,000 galaxies to show that the theory is so far the best description of the universe, at least out to 3.5 billion light years from Earth. Specifically, theories without dark matter do not fit the observations. Publ.Date : Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST Scientists discover 'catastrophic event' behind the halt of star birth in early galaxy formation Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in a galaxy in the early universe. The researchers observed the massive galaxy as it would have appeared just three billion years after the Big Bang when the Universe was a quarter of its present age. Publ.Date : Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST Most extreme white dwarf binary system found with orbit of just five minutes An international team of astronomers has shown that the two stars in the binary HM Cancri definitely revolve around each other in a mere 5.4 minutes. This makes HM Cancri the binary star with by far the shortest known orbital period. It is also the smallest known binary. Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST NASA's Fermi probes 'dragons' of the gamma-ray sky One of the pleasures of perusing ancient maps is locating regions so poorly explored that mapmakers warned of dragons and sea monsters. Now, astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope find themselves in the same situation as cartographers of old. A new study of the ever-present fog of gamma rays from sources outside our galaxy shows that less than a third of the emission arises from what astronomers once considered the most likely suspects -- black-hole-powered jets from active galaxies. Publ.Date : Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST Webb Telescope's first primary mirror meets cold temperature specifications, sets program landmark The James Webb Space Telescope reached a mission-readiness landmark March 2, 2010 when its first primary mirror segment was cryo-polished to its required prescription as measured at operational cryogenic temperatures. This achievement sets the stage for a successful polishing process for the remaining 18 flight mirror segments. Publ.Date : Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 EST Precursors of life-enabling organic molecules in Orion Nebula unveiled by Herschel Space Observatory ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:00:00 EST First of missing primitive stars found Astronomers have discovered a relic from the early universe -- a star that may have been among the second generation of stars to form after the Big Bang. Located in the dwarf galaxy Sculptor some 290,000 light-years away, the star has a remarkably similar chemical make-up to the Milky Way's oldest stars. Its presence supports the theory that our galaxy underwent a "cannibal" phase, growing to its current size by swallowing dwarf galaxies and other galactic building blocks. Publ.Date : Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST Bully galaxy rules the neighborhood In general, galaxies can be thought of as "social" -- hanging out in groups and frequently interacting. However, a new Hubble Space Telescope image highlights how some galaxies appear to be hungry loners. These cosmic oddities have set astronomers on the "case of the missing neighbor galaxies." Publ.Date : Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST How to hunt for exoplanets A new report explains how new technological advances have seen the discovery of more than 400 exoplanets to date, a number expected to rise to thousands in the next few years. Publ.Date : Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:00:00 EST 'Cosmic Bat': Island of stars in the making on outskirts of Orion The delicate nebula NGC 1788, located in a dark and often neglected corner of the Orion constellation, is revealed in a new and finely nuanced image that astronomers have released. Although this ghostly cloud is rather isolated from Orion's bright stars, the latter's powerful winds and light have had a strong impact on the nebula, forging its shape and making it home to a multitude of infant suns. Publ.Date : Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST Exotic magnetar has extremely strong magnetic fields Astronomers have observed an uncommon neutron star. Classified as magnetar, its nature is as peculiar as its official name: SGR 0418+5729. The observations reached an unprecedented depth at optical wavelengths for this kind of sources, helping in constraining the physical properties of this celestial body characterized by extremely strong magnetic fields. Publ.Date : Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:00:00 EST Widening the search for extraterrestrial intelligence The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been dominated for its first half century by a hunt for unusual radio signals. But bold new innovations are required if we are ever to hear from our cosmic neighbors, says a leading expert. Publ.Date : Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST Astronomically large lenses measure the age and size of the universe Using entire galaxies as lenses to look at other galaxies, researchers have a newly precise way to measure the size and age of the universe and how rapidly it is expanding. The measurement determines a value for the Hubble constant, which indicates the size of the universe, and confirms the age of the universe as 13.75 billion years old, within 170 million years. The results also confirm the strength of dark energy, responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe. Publ.Date : Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST New 'alien invader' star clusters found in Milky Way As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way -- many more than previously thought -- are "invaders" from other galaxies, according to a new study. Publ.Date : Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST